Mother from the Cross to Pentecost

On November 21, 1964, Pope St. Paul VI named the Blessed Virgin Mary “Mother of the Church.” This was not a new title given to Our Lady. In the fourth century, St. Ambrose of Milan had already spoken of Mary as “Mother of the Church” in his “Exposition of the Gospel of Luke.” We see that for centuries the Blessed Virgin has been seen to exercise a maternal role for the Church.
 
It makes perfect sense that Our Lady would be seen as Mother of the Church. She conceived the Word-made-flesh in her virginal womb by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit in the Holy House of Nazareth. In the twelfth chapter of his First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul writes of the Church as the Body of Christ. Here he relates that Christ is the Head of His Body the Church and we are His members. Then in the nineteenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, we find the words of Our Lord as He hangs upon the Cross. He looks to His Mother, who is standing beneath His Cross, and says to her, “Woman, behold your son.” He then looks to the disciple whom He loves (St. John the Beloved) and tells him, “Behold, your mother.” The Gospel continues, stating, “And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” From the heart of the Savior and by His very words a relationship, a bond, is established between His own Mother and St. John and between His Mother and all the faithful who are members of His Body the Church. She who is truly the Mother of Jesus Christ in the flesh is also the Mother of the Body of Jesus Christ, which is the Church, and, therefore, the spiritual Mother of each person who is a member of His Body. That, of course, includes you and me.
 
On the first great feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus and ten days after His Ascension into heaven, Our Lady and the Apostles as well as some others were gathered at prayer in the Upper Room. The Holy Spirit came upon them like a driving wind and like tongues of fire which rested on each of them. The Holy Spirit came to this band, which was the newly born Church, Christ’s Mystical Body on earth. She who was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit as she consented by her “Fiat” to conceive Christ is again overshadowed by the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room in preparation to fulfill her role as Mother of all the faithful, the Church, the Body of Christ on earth.
 
We see, dear brothers and sisters, the beauty of this teaching of the Church that tells us the Blessed Virgin Mary is Mother of the Church and Mother of us all. It is not only an academic exercise. Rather, it is primarily a matter of a relationship of love. The Motherhood of Mary for the Church manifests to us our relationship to Christ Jesus, whose Body is the Church, and our relationship to the Virgin Mother to whom we have been entrusted. It also speaks to us of our relationship to each other and all members of Christ’s Body as bound up in the saving grace of Him who died on the Cross and rose from the dead for our salvation. It is by this relationship of love that we are shown the pilgrim way to heaven.  We rejoice to see that Mary is truly the Mother of the Church and Mother to each one of us from the Cross to Pentecost and beyond.
 
Most Reverend William J. Waltersheid
Auxiliary Bishop of Pittsburgh